Inexplicably Drawn
by TheXGrayXLady
Summary: She'd become his muse. Albeit a fickle and difficult muse that he could only allow himself the occasional influence of, but a muse nonetheless.


**Notes:** So yeah. I don't normally write for this fandom, but I enjoyed this. I hope you do too.

 _Inexplicably Drawn_

Altair bit at the scar on his lip and stared at the book as the ink from his last pen stroke soaked into the page. As a consummate perfectionist, he demanded nothing but the best of himself at all times and this was far from his best work.

"What are you working on?" Maria asked, poking at the camp fire with her sword. He stared at the book a moment longer, unsure of what to say.

"Recording the day," he said. It was mostly the truth. While he was making a record and it was of a day, it was of only one moment, a little more than three days ago.

It would likely do him no harm to tell the truth, and if he were being truthful, there was a little part of him that was tempted to show her the drawing, but not yet. Not until he'd gotten it right.

On their travels east, he'd started to record their journey. Cities, people, science, stories, wildlife, all manner of knowledge, he wrote down in what was now several small bound books. It was meant to be only a record, but after a while, he found other things crept in between the drawings of spires and descriptions of new alchemical techniques.

He almost didn't realize what he was doing the first time he started drawing her. He meant merely to document the elephant and its harness. Yet somehow, she'd wound up reaching out to touch its snout as if petting a horse. The drawing was sloppy, her features uneven, and the lines clumsy and awkward, yet he couldn't bring himself to throw it away. So, he tried again the next day, drawing her as she looked when they first met, brave and proud, in armor too big for her, and very much determined to see him dead. He still found he could not do her justice.

He could never get her right and he'd told himself after the first drawing that he wouldn't do it again. He said the same thing after the second drawing. Then the same after the third. Since then, she'd become his muse. Albeit a fickle and difficult muse that he could only allow himself the occasional influence of, but a muse nonetheless.

Tonight, he drew her defending a young woman from the city guard, just as she had three days ago. They spilt up in the market when they stopped for supplies, not an hour later, alarm bells were sounding and legions of guards were heading towards the other side of the market.

His first instinct was to ignore the commotion and head the other way. It would not be prudent to draw attention to himself by getting involved. Then one of the guards called their quarry a demon woman. He dropped the ink pot he was holding, much to the chagrin of the stall owner, and followed the guards to a back alley.

She could have easily escaped, yet she would not leave until the other woman was safe. She stood between the guards and her charge backed up against a wall like a cornered lioness defending her cub. He couldn't help but think of all the times she'd criticized him for wasting so much time and energy on saving citizens.

That was how he drew her, long sword drawn and daring anybody to try and attack her ward. It still wasn't right. Her face was too narrow, her stance weak, the sword unbalanced. It was enough to make him doubt he had any artistic ability whatsoever.

Altair flipped back a few pages, looking for a reference. He could have just looked at her. She was only on the other side of the fire. But that would have led to staring, and Maria asking why he was staring, And him not having a sufficient explanation for why he was staring at her.

The first picture he came to was of her astride her horse. The bay was a beastly creature, a half-wild war horse taller than she was, they'd won from another European knight. Yet she commanded him with the ease of someone who'd done it their whole life. Somehow, he'd managed to make her look nervous and he would like to pretend he hadn't drawn those hands. Hands would always be his downfall.

He grimaced and flipped further back. All his other drawings were flawless. He'd made a sketch of the city gates days ago, sand beaten gray stone with gaps just large enough to be hand or footholds. There was an overhang near the top of the wall, but the intricate carvings made it scalable. He smiled, remembering their escape from the city down that very wall.

There was a sketch of a library, with white robed scholars milling about for decidedly less bloody purposes than white robed scholars were typically associated with in his life. It was so well done he could see the stitching in the spine of a book and the crinkles in a well-read scroll.

There was a wonderful drawing of an astrolabe, the interlocking gears seemed caught mid-turn on the page. Before moving on, he added a bit of shading to the center gear, then the rust spots he'd carelessly forgotten on the edge.

For a while, he flipped through alternating failed drawings of Maria and glorious drawings of other things. Then he flipped back too far. He almost had to shut the book when he saw it and he was grateful for his hood and the shadows from the fire obscuring his expression. It was by far his best sketch of Maria and easily his favorite, but he could never look at it for more than a single stolen moment and she could never know it existed.

In the drawing, she wore the robes of a Grandmaster Assassin and dove from a minaret like she'd done so for her entire life. He'd drawn it over the course of almost a two week in short, stolen flashes while standing watch at night. It was perfect. Every pen stroke was perfectly placed, there was no smudging or inkblots, her likeness was uncanny, her face and expression the perfect mix between severity, determination, and warmth.

Yet he couldn't look at it without wishing for a different ending to their journey. He'd already been away from Masyaf for far too long, she wanted to continue east to India, then likely further afield, and she was free to go wherever the winds and that beast of a horse took her. He kept telling himself they'd split up at the next city, but they kept seeing and hearing of one wonder after another. Just the look on her face when she saw something new and amazing was enough to convince him to journey onwards, but he knew it couldn't last.

While he knew he should flip back to the blank page to document the guards' response to suspicious behavior, he paused. He allowed himself one last glance at the drawing of Maria. In it, she looked a perfect part of his world. For just a moment, he couldn't help but hope.


End file.
